All Good Things
by hexgirl2000
Summary: Severus has survived the final battle and finds himself, twenty years later alone and full of regrets. He has recently lost his sight and decides to visit a faith healer. While waiting, he meets Sam, a deaf girl who, using her computer voice generator, plies him with questions - particularly about an old, painful relationship which Severus is initially reluctant to talk about.
1. Chapter 1

All Good Things.

One

The surly receptionist led Severus by the elbow and showed him to a hard wooden seat. He heard the soft rustle of robes and the sound of her stiletto heels clicking away across the linoleum floor, growing fainter until they disappeared altogether along with the accompanying soft clicks and thud of a door being opened and closed.

At first, he thought he was alone in the waiting room, but after a few moments of quiet reverie he detected another presence. It was the fragrance he noticed first—light and pleasant like a gentle breeze on a spring day. Once he caught the scent, his senses soon became fine-tuned enough to catch irrefutable evidence of a companion in the silent hollow room: a steady low rhythm, the unmistakeable sound of the intake and release of soft breaths.

'Hello!' he said to the air. 'Is someone there?' There was no answer, and for a moment he wondered if he had been mistaken; but as he listened closely, he once more heard the sound of breathing, this time accompanied by the discernible sound of a person shifting position in a chair clearly as uncomfortable as his own.

'Hello!' He repeated, this time a little louder. 'Who's that?'

The waiting room remained devoid of human voice—quiet and still but for the sounds of his own growing impatience and the continued, maddening evidence that a living soul other than himself occupied the space so close to him and was refusing to speak.

'I know there's someone there,' he insisted. 'I can hear you breathing. Do you think it's amusing to play tricks on a blind man?'

'Oh! Are you talking to me?'

The voice was not human. At least, the sound of it was not. It was an artificial voice, generated from some device which Severus suspected to be Muggle in origin, and though there was a feminine intonation to it, it had the flat mechanical tones of the robots he remembered from science fiction T.V. as a small boy.

'Of course I'm talking to you,' he replied irritably. 'Who else would I be talking to?'

'I can't hear you,' said the mechanical voice. 'I'm deaf. I noticed your lips moving.'

Severus realised that the voice was also accompanied by the adept tapping of fingers on a keyboard. He took a moment to process her answer before making his reply with the addition of a series of awkward accompanying hand gestures. 'Why don't you use your real voice?'

The quick tapping of fingers answered almost as simultaneously as the reply. 'I don't like the way my deaf voice sounds, so I use a Muggle computer to speak for me. Muggles are way ahead of us when it comes to helping the afflicted.'

'How do you know what it sounds like if you can't hear it?'

'I can see it on people's faces when I speak.' The voice paused for a moment, and then he heard the tapping sound which indicated she had more to say. 'You can sign? Unusual for a wizard.'

He signed again as he replied. 'I once knew someone who was deaf.'

'You once knew a salmon who was deaf? How could you tell?'

'SOMEONE! I once knew _someone_ who was deaf.'

'Oh! Well let's stick to you speaking and me lip-reading; you could get into trouble if you keep signing that badly.'

'I'm a little rusty,' he conceded. 'Are you always this rude?'

'I prefer to think of it as direct—some people find it charming.'

'Also delusional,' he muttered. Severus wondered what she looked like; her voice conjured up images of a metallic body and flashing lights for eyes. There was nothing fleshy about the flat emotionless tones of the electronic representation of human sound. Yet there was something spirited and compelling about her answers which marked her as undoubtedly human. He suddenly realised that he had made an assumption about her gender based on a slightly female sounding voice and a non-masculine musk. 'What's your name?' he asked.

'Sam,' replied the voice, continuing to give no clues as to gender. 'What's yours?'

'Severus.'

'Suits you.'

'Are you female?'

'Well if I was male and chose this voice I'd have more issues than that quack we're waiting to see could solve with her mumbo jumbo hand-laying crap.'

Severus smiled. 'I see you are as open-minded as I am.'

He could almost hear the dismissive shrug in her voice. 'Worth a shot. The Healers at St. Mungos could do nothing. The Muggles couldn't help. What's left?'

'A wing and a prayer,' he replied.

'A nutter with a made-up name and a penchant for scarves.'

'You've already seen The Divine Madame Floella then?' he asked, alarmed that this was not Sam's first consultation. How many were required before results could be expected? He could not envisage putting himself through this uncomfortable experience more than once.

'No! Just a wild stab in the dark. But I bet I'm right.'

'I sincerely hope you are not.' He suddenly had visions of being called into the consulting room only to be confronted by Sybil Trelawney or some other equally deluded version. What was he doing here? Had desperation really reduced him to putting his trust in an unknown and untried entity? A probable trickster with as much clout as Neville Longbottom in a Potions Lab. He considered his fellow victim and for once did not feel so desperately devoid of an ally. 'How did you lose your hearing?' he asked.

'I've been deaf all my life.'

'And how long is that?'

'I'm nineteen.'

He was momentarily taken aback by her reply; she seemed older, more worldly-wise than that. Her confident replies had given her the distinction of a woman in her thirties. Or perhaps it was the lack of humanity in her voice which gave the delusion of maturity, or at least the absence of youth.

She tapped out her next question. 'How old are _you_? No! Let me guess.' She paused for a moment apparently to consider. 'You look about fiftyish, I'd say. Maybe more.'

'And they say young people have no sensitivity.'

'To be fair, you don't look as if you give a shit what anyone thinks of you. That overgrown beard look is not as attractive as you'd think.'

Twenty years ago, Severus would have been hex-furious if anyone had dared to insult him so blatantly. His youth and adolescence had been defined by insults and sneers—once he reached adulthood and gained a little authority, he had no intention of allowing even the tiniest dig. Now, however, he found himself only mildly irritated by the slight, and he even felt a tinge of amusement at her audacity. No trenchant retort came to his lips; it seemed pointless and would no longer give him the fleeting feeling of satisfaction it once did.

'It is difficult to groom without the benefit of sight,' he replied defensively.

'Is that why you're here?'

'To get a shave? No!'

Her giggle was not artificially created; it was spontaneous and pleasant, and she quickly repressed it as if she was embarrassed to have let it out.

'Your sight,' said Sam's artificial voice. 'Is that why you're here?'

'Wizarding expertise and Muggle technology failed me too,' he admitted.

'So now it's time for any old Voodoo shit?'

'Precisely.'

He found her bluntness more stimulating than he cared to admit and tried to remember the last time he been so engaged by a human being. He had to conclude that he didn't have enough fingers to estimate how long it had been. Yet despite his reluctant enjoyment in her forthright observations, he was still a little prickled by her disrespect; she must know who he was, everyone did. No one spoke to him without deference, certainly not a slip of a girl who was just a toddler when he was saving lives, reputations and wizarding-kind. She spoke to him as if she didn't know about his past, and he knew that to be impossible; he had yet to cross the path of a single magical soul who did not know his history in all its sordid, grimy and glorious detail. He had struggled with the burden of notoriety for the first few years of life following the final battle, but gradually, he'd learned to tolerate the furtive looks as he walked along Hogsmeade High Street and the awed whispers on the rare occasions when he ventured into Diagon Alley. They were rarely discourteous—he had come out of the whole thing with his reputation very much intact—but he would have given a great deal for a week or two of blissful anonymity. It was something of a relief, if an unaccountable one, therefore, that his new acquaintance seemed not to know him from Adam.

He heard her tapping fingers again. 'So tell me about this deaf salmon you used to know,' she said.

Severus was startled by her request. He hadn't spoken of _her_ to anyone in years, though he thought of her constantly and fantasised about her turning up again in the unlikeliest of places when he felt particularly self-indulgent. After all these years, he could still hear the sound of her voice, visualise the shape of her face: cheekbones, nose, mouth, eyes. The feel of her hand in his was as clear to him as if he had felt it there only hours ago.

'Why do you want to know about _her_?'

'It's a she? She was important enough to make you learn to sign.' She paused and cleared her throat. 'She's the most interesting thing about you so far.'

'You really are direct.'

'What was her name?'

Had it really been eighteen years since he had said her name out loud? The thought of having a valid reason to utter those three syllables made his pulse race, and he berated himself for his wretchedness.

He was surprised that the word did not stick in his gullet, unable to escape from his lips so that this young girl could watch the formation of the eight magnificent letters which spelled out her name.

'Hermione,' he said.


	2. Chapter 2

TWO

'Was she pretty?'

'She was to me.' He had answered before he could stop himself or tell her to mind her own business.

'That means no. What did she do?'

_Tell her to shut up, tell her to switch off that damn computer and sit there in silence._ 'Apart from saving the world from oppression, she was my assistant.'

'Don't tell me: young girl, gullible, naïve, eager to please, needed a job, looked up to you. Thought you were interesting, charismatic, if not exactly handsome… '

'Impertinent girl!'

'…an easy shag.'

'It was nothing like that at all.'

'She wasn't an easy shag?'

'She was neither naïve, nor gullible.'

'But she _did_ look up to you?'

'No! Maybe. I don't know.'

He wanted her to stop this interrogation of the most sacred and private part of his life. The early part of his past may now be public property, but his life with Hermione was theirs, it belonged to no one else, it was the only revered thing he had left. Yet if she stopped the cross-examination, the onslaught of feelings and memories it had provoked would slink back to their dusty shelf. He wanted them out.

'What did she assist with?'

'Potions.'

'Potions?'

'Yes. I had a small business. I brewed potions.' He paused to bask in the warmth of a memory which had suddenly consumed him: the proximity of Hermione by his side, chopping and slicing ingredients, mutually absorbed in the task of brewing, no need for conversation, just content to be in each other's company. 'My options had been limited after the war, but I could still do that. She was my assistant.'

'Was she a good assistant?'

'She knew her way around a cauldron, yes. She had a brilliant mind. She was logical, precise and resourceful. She had a feel for potions. More than she realised. She had the skill of experience and the enthusiasm of youth. And she had the boldness to create original brews with astounding results.'

'I like her,' said Sam's monotone voice accompanied by the now familiar tapping sound. 'Sounds like the title of assistant was a bit demeaning; maybe you should have been her assistant.'

Severus paused—irritated again. He had no intention of telling this passionless robotic voice that she could never understand the balance of their relationship; that Hermione was so very much more than a mere assistant. She was his world. Words were inadequate.

The quick tapping sound told him she had more to say. 'How did you meet?' she asked.

'She turned up at my house one day.'

'Just like that? Bit forward.'

'I had been a bit of a recluse—for reasons I have no intentions of going into. She took it upon herself to remedy that situation.'

'I bet you welcomed her with open arms.'

'Hardly. But she wouldn't give up. It didn't matter what I said or how rude I was. At first I resented her interference. It wasn't too long before I realised I couldn't do without her. After a while we agreed that she would become my assistant.'

'Cosy.'

He had delved into his uncomfortable past and indulged this confident young stranger's whims for long enough. He was growing weary of the tirade of flippancy she tossed back at him after his every attempt to justify himself.

'This conversation is starting to feel very one-sided,' he said. 'What about you? Don't I get a chance to hear about your past demeanours?'

'I'm too young for past follies. I've led a sheltered life,' she replied. 'About this plain but brilliant girlfriend of yours.'

He sighed. 'I didn't say she was plain.'

'You didn't say she was pretty.'

'She was more than mere pretty. Pretty is for ordinary women; she was not ordinary. She was beyond such mundane descriptions.' He stopped for a moment to recall her image. He smiled fondly at the memory of her hair—it had tumbled down her back in waves and curls that could not be stilled—not even by magical means for long, though she had tried. Her hair was like she was: defiant and brave and beautiful.

'You sound well matched.'

Severus snorted. 'We seemed to work… for a time. She was everything I was not: much loved, compassionate, kind, funny, and full of the light and life of youth.'

'She was younger than you?'

'Considerably.'

'So, you were a dirty old man as well as an abuser of power?'

Her words hit him with the force of an expertly wielded club. He knew they were not true. He also knew that the censorious eyes of the world had looked upon the two of them and seen a pervert and a foolish girl.

'How dare you speak of such things!' he responded. 'Enough questions that are none of your business. We will wait in silence.' He was beginning to wonder if this was some elaborate part of the treatment—some underhand scheme by the Divine Madame Floella to unnerve her new client and make him vulnerable to whatever hocus-pocus she had in store for him.

After a moment of blissful silence, he heard the quick tapping of fingers on a keyboard again. A fraction of a second later he heard Sam's computer voice. 'I overstepped the boundaries. I touched a nerve.'

'It is a painful subject.'

'Being dumped usually is.'

'I didn't say I was dumped.'

'No, but you do have a look of desperation about you that only comes with the worst sort of misery.'

'Thank you for that insightful, and as usual, offensive deduction. May I ask _why_ you assume my degradation?'

'Well the wild beard and crumpled robes look went out with leather sandals and twigs for wands. It takes a lot of despair to look that neglected.'

'There was a time when I would have made you regret such impertinence.'

'If you're thinking about hexing me, I don't fancy your chances. No one would lay down money on the accuracy of your aim. But if it's just a tongue-lashing you had in mind, go ahead; I can take it.'

'I find I have little enthusiasm left for either magical or verbal aggression these days,' he replied, wondering at the feebleness of his own admission.

'Pity.'

They lapsed into silence for a moment before he heard the rhythmical tap of her fingers again.

'Tell me more about this young girl you took advantage of.'

'No!'

Oh, go on! I'll let you feel my tits.'

He almost choked on a disturbing mixture of indignation and amusement. 'I don't want to feel your… _anything_,' he said. 'What makes you think I would?'

'You're a man. Men have a thing for deaf girls, believe me.'

'If you are this cynical at nineteen, I shudder to imagine what another ten years will produce. And I thought you said you'd led a sheltered life?'

'I read a lot.'

'Lucky you.'

'Why did she dump you?'

'She didn't.' He stopped, unable to face pouring out the whole loathsome story, not even for the macabre sense of deserved self-flagellation he knew it would be. 'We just grew apart. People do. There isn't always a reason.'

'I'm sensing bullshit.'

'Has anyone ever told you that you are extremely irritating?'

'I'm known for my sunny disposition.'

'Then I seem to be bringing out your inner cynic.'

'Does that happen a lot?'

'What? Me bringing out the worst in people?'

'Did you bring out the worst in her?'

It had been the thing he feared the most—that his inclination for the dark might taint and defile that which was pure and good, but his fears had been redundant with Hermione, her compassionate nature was beyond being tarnished by his unworthiness.

'No! No one could have done that. There was no deficiency to bring out. _She _encouraged whatever was good in _me_.'

'She seemed to do a lot for you: brilliant assistant, handy bed-warmer, coaxer out of hidden charms—which seems to have been a temporary thing—what was she getting out of it?

He laughed despite her cavalier treatment of all he held dear. 'She… '

'She what?'

'We had many common interests.'

'Potions?'

'Not just that. We laughed at the same absurdities.'

'Potions and poking fun?'

'We took pleasure in similar books, enjoyed discussing the same topics.' How could he tell this flippant, fearless deaf girl that he and Hermione had been made for each other—carved from the same piece of rock—though it had taken her delivery into womanhood, and a great deal of patience and tenacity on her part for him to realise that? How could he tell Sam that they had spent long afternoons making love in their springy old double bed which sagged in the middle? This self-assured, inexperienced young woman could never understand the joy he had felt as he drifted to sleep exhausted and sated in the arms of his beautiful Hermione. She had made him feel breathless with love, secure in her return of it, and more at peace than he had felt since he had left the womb. He could still smell her skin, salty from perspiration and lightly scented with warm honeysuckle and fresh linen. Her absence from his life was still as much of a physical wrench— a thing felt in his gut— as it was when tender, sore and heart-stabbingly fresh, eighteen years ago. 'Our views of the world coincided—though she had a more agreeable way of expressing dissatisfaction than I ever did.'

'I can believe that.'

'She enjoyed my company and I hers. Her company was infinitely more pleasing than any I have encountered before or since. It was soothing yet stimulating; peaceful, yet vibrant; she knew when to be silent and when to provoke.' He smiled. 'She certainly knew how to provoke.'

'Thank Christ for that, I was beginning to think she was too good to be true.'

'Make no mistake,' he snarled. 'She _was_ too good to be true. At least, she was for me. Sometimes I think I must have dreamed her up.'

'Did she love you?'

He swallowed hard and would have given her one of his famed devastating glares had he still been capable. 'I think she did, yes,' he said almost to himself.

'And you loved her?'

'Yes.'

'Funny how you just grew apart then.'

Silence reigned glorious for minutes before the tapping noise signalled the resumption of his grilling.

'Did you remain friends?'

He hesitated. 'I haven't seen her in a while.'

'That's not what I asked.'

'She has a new life now.'

'Where?'

'I don't know,' he snapped.

'So, this great girl, who means the world to you, drifts in and out of your life and you don't even know what happened to her?'

'Why are _you_ so interested?' he asked suspiciously.

'She's the only thing about you I like.'

He shook his head in resignation and sighed. 'She was the only thing I liked about me too.'

'Bit careless of you to let her go then.'

He remained tight-lipped as the quick tapping told him to expect another fearful question.

'What's her last name?'

'What?'

'I can look her up on my computer. The wizarding world has websites, you know.'

'I'm perfectly aware of that.'

'Well you don't look like an embracer of Muggle technology.'

'You don't know the first thing about me. Apparently.'

'I know that you're a black-robe wearing, desperado, looking for a way to make your shit life just a tiny bit more bearable. Is there more?'


	3. Chapter 3

THREE

The truth and incisiveness of her statement hit him hard in the stomach like the closed fist of an assailant. The sting turned his answer into a vitriolic outburst. 'As opposed to you, an interfering, meddlesome teen with nothing to do but augment her own paltry existence by gathering up the details of someone else's life—someone who _had_ a life instead of wasting it, hanging around places of despair, looking for lonely middle-aged men to force her irksome company upon.'

'That's the spirit,' she said. 'But to be fair, I don't make a habit of this. I'm making an exception for you. Now! About this ex of yours. We should be able to look her up, especially if she carried on with inventing clever new potions. So, what's her last name?'

He had expected an equally acrimonious retort—he knew she was capable of perceiving his weaknesses and giving them voice. Her reasonable reply made him feel like he was the sulky teenager and she the responsible adult. His reply confirmed it. 'I'm not telling you.'

She began to tap again. 'Let's see shall we—shouldn't be too difficult.' The electronic voice spoke slowly and deliberately as she spelled out her intention on her keyboard. 'Sev-er-us Sn-ape and Her-mi-on-e,' she tapped.

'Stop that!' he shouted in panic. 'How do you know my full name? You gave the impression that I'm a stranger to you. Who are you?'

'I saw Susan, the delightful receptionist, call you Mr. Snape when you first arrived. Ah! Here we are—an article in the Daily Prophet archives announcing a new business partnership between Professor Severus Snape and Miss Hermione...'

'Stop it!'

'Granger.'

'I said stop it! Why are you torturing me? Who are you? Someone with a grudge? Have I wronged you? If so, join the queue.' A terrible thought suddenly sprang into his mind, a thought which he realised should have occurred to him sooner. 'Are you…? Are you her daughter?'

'Bit random.'

'Are you?'

'No. And if this was some sort of payback scam, you'd have known about it by now. I'm Sam, just Sam.'

'You're so quick to pick away at my life, yet you tell me nothing of your own.'

'I told you, there's nothing to tell. Ah! Here we are…'

The sound of a heartless mechanical voice reading details of Hermione's life from an old Muggle computer screen was thrillingly horrific. He did not want to hear; ignorance may not be bliss, but it was better than knowing that she had moved on.

'There's even a recent picture,' said Sam. 'She _is_ younger than you, and definitely pretty, I'd say. She doesn't seem to have kept up with the potions.

'Where is she?' he couldn't stop himself from eagerly asking.

'Australia. Married. He looks nicer than you. Two boys, no daughters. They all look very happy.'

'Good,' he said, though his heart felt as if it was breaking. 'She deserves happy.'

'Yes, I expect she does. Want to know what she does for a living?'

'No! Enough!' he bellowed. 'Where the hell is this Divine Floella woman? HELLO! Is anyone there? HELLO!'

He made to stand up and knocked over a glass of water from the table by his side, muttering expletives as the cold water seeped into his robes.

'Sit down,' she said. 'I'll go and find out what's happening. Here, hold still.'

He heard a series of noises and worked out that she had put down her computer, walked towards him and taken out her wand: the unpleasant dampness clinging to his skin was soon gone. He heard her return briefly to the computer and tap out, 'There! Now keep your wig on while I go and find Susan.' He heard her footsteps click lightly across the floor then stop. He heard the sound of a bell as she summoned the elusive Susan, then the sound of a door opening and a few muttered exchanges which he couldn't quite make out. After a few moment of growing impatience, he was rewarded with the sound of feet returning to their seat, and he soon heard the familiar steady tap of fingertips on keyboard.

'Susan apologises for the delay. Whoever is in there is taking longer than expected.'

'This is bloody ridiculous. I don't even know what I'm doing here.'

'At least you haven't been bored.'

'I would have enjoyed that.'

'No you wouldn't.'

'Why are you here, Sam? Why now, if you've been deaf all your life?'

A pause was followed by the lifeless tones of the artificial voice.

'I hate having to look at people's mouths when they speak, and when they do, I hate not knowing what their voice sounds like. I hate watching Quidditch matches and not hearing the excitement of the crowd or the clash of broomsticks, or my own cheers. I hate meeting people in the street and seeing their faces fall when they see me because they know that talking to me will be such hard work.'

'That may not be anything to do with your being deaf.'

'Quiet—I haven't finished. I hate not being able to hear a thunderstorm, or the sound the sea makes when it crashes onto rocks, or the wind in the trees, or birdsong, or kids playing. I hate that I can see emotions on faces but not hear them. I can't hear laughter, or grief, or anger. I can't listen to music or experience theatre as other people do. I hate missing bits of conversation when I'm with a group of people. I hate that everyone has to alter the way they talk for me. I hate that I can never listen to the radio like my family and friends do, or hear a door bell, or a quill scratching on parchment, or the noise a tap makes when it's running. Even a book makes noises I can't hear: pages turning, and the sound it makes when I throw it across the room. So if that incense-burning crackpot in there wants to wave her scarves and chant her voodoo shit over my gullible carcass, I'm in.'

Severus remained quiet for a moment in case there was an additional stanza to her tirade, but it seemed as though she had said her piece.

'On the positive side, you've certainly learned how to type fast,' he said.

'It was pre-prepared,' she told him. 'One tap.'

'This isn't the first time you've needed to explain yourself then?'

'I like people to know how I feel. Better to get it out.' He heard her cough and was surprised at how strange the realisation that she was a living being sounded when offset against the starkness of the electronic. It was a powerful reminder of her vulnerability, of her reassuringly unsophisticated humanity.

'I'll take your word for that,' he said.

'So when did you lose your sight?'

'About six months ago.'

'An accident?'

'Yes,' he replied tentatively.

'You accidentally got into a fight with a Death Eater?'

'If you knew why did you ask?'

'Just curious. It's here, in the Daily Prophet's archives: _Snape takes on Death Eater in pub brawl shame_. Not a very flattering picture.'

'Yes, I remember the headline well, thank you.'

'_Unlikely war hero, Severus Snape was yesterday involved in a public wand dual with his old ally, Lucius Malfoy. Turn-coat Malfoy, who escaped Azkaban and justice by squealing on his chums, was reported as…_ '

'No need to regale me with last year's tabloid slander. I am well aware of Vera Vitchley's so-called journalistic revelations. The woman makes Rita Skeeter seem like the embodiment of integrity.'

'Who?'

'Before your time.'

'So, it's all lies?'

He hesitated. 'There _was_ an altercation.'

'With wands?'

'Wands _were _resorted to in the end, yes.'

'Resulting in the loss of your sight?'

'Obviously.'

'Some altercation.'

'I'm not proud of it.'

'Are you prone to fighting in pubs?'

'Of course not!' he spat. 'I was provoked. Severely provoked.'

'Oh, he started it then?'

'That's what I mean by _provoked_.'

'And you seem so laid-back. I'm trying to work out what he could have said that was bad enough for you to attack him in the Leaky Cauldron.'

Severus sighed. 'There is only one subject,' he said through gritted teeth.

'_Her_?'

'Her.'

'He was rude about her?'

'He knew it would get the desired reaction. He was drunk, but I didn't care.'

'Did you manage to fling any curses at him?' she asked.

'Several.'

He heard a hurriedly stifled real snigger which sounded like music to ears that had become used to her synthetic sounds.

'And is he permanently damaged?' she tapped out.

'I believe his hair has never grown back, but other than that, no.'

'And… there was nothing the spell-damage department at St. Mungos could do for you?'

'They didn't try.'

'Why not?'

'My loss of sight was not as a result of spell-damage. A stray curse hit a wooden beam. I did not see it falling in time.'

'Oh!'

'The blow to my head caused optic nerve damage which they say is irreversible.'

'You're as fucked as I am then,' she said.

He laughed. 'Let's not give up hope; we haven't tried the chanting and scarves yet.'

He loved it when he provoked a real laugh from her. Her stifled giggle was that of an untroubled girl with everything to hope for, but when she spoke, her simulated cheerful monotones concealed a burden akin to his own.

'It's her fault you are like this then?' she said.

'What?'

'You were defending her honour, so you could say that she is to blame.'

'No one is to blame but myself. But in a perverse way it could almost be seen as poetic justice—an eye for an ear.'

There was no reply for what felt like minutes, and the room was plunged into a bleak silence. For a moment, Severus questioned the dependability of his remaining senses because it seemed as if he was alone in the room. Perhaps his mind had conjured up this prying robotic woman to quell his fears and punish his conscience.

The sound of tapping came as something of a relief. 'What do you mean _an eye for an ear_?' she said.

'I was the reason she lost her hearing; it would be perfectly fitting if she was the reason for my loss of sight.'

Another long silence unnerved him again. 'Did you whack her round the head with a cauldron?' she asked.

'Regularly. But that wasn't it.'

'Did you get jealous of her superior potioneering and slip her a dodgy brew?'

'She would have been too superior to fall for something as trite as that.'

'Not another loose beam in the Leaky Cauldron?'

He snorted. 'I didn't _actively _cause her to lose her hearing.'

'How was it your fault then?'

'We were working on a potion together; a new invention which we knew would be ground-breaking if it worked. Any new potion needs testing on a subject once it gets to a certain stage. There are always risks.'

'So ,you forced her to take it and it went wrong?'

'I forbade her to take it. She did it anyway.'

'Then how is that your fault? It sounds like she was determined to be chief tester.'

'The potion was my idea therefore its failure was my responsibility.'

'I thought you were in it together?'

'That's not the point.'

'Isn't it?'

'She ingested too much. At test level, only a single droplet should be taken to begin with. She drank a full vial.'

'Sounds like a right twonk to me, that brilliant potion's assistant. Was she usually so slapdash?'

'No, anything but. We were so convinced that we'd got it right this time—she put her faith in it. She put her faith in _me_ and lost her hearing.'

'Did she blame you?'

'No. She changed though. After that, her vitality was gone; her spark seemed to have been stamped out. She cried a lot. She was angry. Angry at everything: the Ministry, the weather, anything written in the Daily Prophet, everyone else's inadequacies, but mainly herself. She should have been angry at me, but she was angry at everything else instead.'

'Did you talk to her? Let her tell you how she was feeling? How frightened she was and how vulnerable she felt?'

'I couldn't. I couldn't bear to see her like that: the evidence of my own failure. She would sob for hours sometimes. Everything I touch turns sour, I should have known that.'

'Sounds like she just needed to grieve for a bit. Sounds like she just needed to let it out, be with someone who meant more to her than noises.'

'If I could have those weeks back again…'

'So what did you do while Hermione was going mad with her new silent world? Did you shut yourself off with your potions so that at least she knew where you were?'

He shook his head desolately. 'I avoided her as much as I could.'

'Well aren't you Prince fucking Charming?'

'I went out. Stayed out. Returned home late at night worse for wear. Sometimes I didn't even come home at all.'

'I see where this is going. _We just drifted apart_ suddenly seems a bit of a stretch.'

'She never asked where I was, though I suppose she guessed.'

'Why didn't she ask?'

'I think she was afraid to hear me say it. You see, I was spending time with people she despised. People who deserved her scorn.'

'You were friends with people who deserved her scorn?'

'Once. A long time ago. Another life-time ago, but not then and not now. Yet I turned to them when I needed somewhere to escape to.'

'Who were they?'

'Lucius Malfoy and his wife, Narcissa.'

'Baldy? You must have been really desperate to get away from her.'

'I have made some monumentally appalling decisions in my time, but that ranks amongst my very worst. They welcomed me with open arms of course. They had barely managed to keep their chins above water after the war. Despised by the wizarding world, shunned by the society they had once felt themselves to be at the very pinnacle of, they could not have been happier for me to reject Hermione and choose to spend almost all my time holed up with them and their exile. I drank their brandy, ate their foie gras, and even slept in their guest bedroom at times. And they encouraged me to stay as long as I liked.

'While the woman you loved cried alone?'

'There was something peaceful about being with the Malfoys—they didn't ask questions, they simply welcomed me into their home and let me drink myself unconscious. I soon realised that being lucid was no place for my wretched thoughts, and I probably spent days without really sobering up.'

'Don't tell me she got bored of your self-indulgent little bender?'

His laugh was empty and devoid of humour. 'I returned to our home after staying away for three nights without word of where I was or when I would be returning. I recall that I walked through the door feeling as if I had turned a corner, and I was determined to make amends, be what she needed me to be. I had a speech prepared; I was going to beg for forgiveness and tell her that I would make everything alright. But I was too late. She was gone.'

'Did you look for her?'

'Of course I looked for her. I tried everyone and everywhere I could think of.'

'You can't have tried hard enough.'

'She didn't want to be found.'

'Maybe not at first…'

'She could have come back once she'd calmed down. She didn't.'

'Maybe she thought it was up to you to find her?'

'What was I supposed to do?'

'Keep looking. Just keep looking. You shouldn't have stopped. You shouldn't have got on with your life.'

He let out a short hollow laugh. 'Get on with it? I never got on with it. I gave up the business—I couldn't do it without her. I saw no one, went nowhere; I existed, I didn't live. _She _got on with _her_ life.'

The silence became almost unbearable; it seemed to last for minutes, and he was sure that she must have slipped out unheard, disgusted by what he had confessed. Eventually, the liberating sounds of her tapping fingers brought a reply. 'Do you blame her?'

_Yes! She should have known I was finished without her_.

'She deserves to be happy,' he said.


	4. Chapter 4

FOUR

'Mr. Snape!' Susan's voice sounded sharp and impatient, but there was a sense of inertia conveyed in her brusqueness and Severus couldn't decide whether it was due to disillusionment or a wish for an end to her work day. He hoped for the latter. He spoke no further words to his young inquisitor, and she did not offer either a response or a word of comfort to him as he allowed Susan to guide him into the consulting room and introduce him to his wing and prayer.

'Ah! Mr. Snape,' said the Divine Madame Floella. Her voice was deliberately wistful in its delivery. She spoke to him as if she had just woken up from a particularly restful sleep. 'I must thank you for your patience, I don't like to keep my clients waiting but sometimes it can't be avoided.'

Severus mumbled a reply and felt even more vulnerable under the imagined watchful gaze of an unorthodox healer he didn't have the remotest faith in, than he had felt under the scrutiny of his mechanical accuser in the waiting room. The consulting room smelled heavily of some sweet, sickly fragrance which he presumed was supposed to act as some kind of atmosphere enhancer.

'For our first session,' she continued in her dream-like voice, 'I will be summoning the spirits of the dead who will enter your...'

'_First_ session?' repeated Severus, ignoring for a moment her other disturbing revelation. 'Your advertisement led me to believe that the miraculous healing would take place within the hour.'

Madame Floella laughed indulgently and Severus felt as if he was playing the role of a school boy who had asked to be allowed home because he had finished his sums.

'The results will depend on you, Mr. Snape. And your willingness to let the spirits do their work.'

He had never heard such absurd assertions in his life, and he realise at once that he had made a mistake in coming to see this charlatan. Sam was right, she probably _was_ draped in scarves and if she was about to start chanting in some bogus effort to summon the dead, he would probably laugh in her face.

'And your advertisement also made it absolutely clear that _you _were the one doing the healing, not I. Why, therefore, do the results depend on me?' he replied.

'I can see that your mind is clouded by doubt,' she said with an insincere melancholy to her tone.

'Brilliant deduction. Should I also remind you that your advertisement clearly stated that doubters were most welcome—and I believe that is a direct quote.'

'May I ask where you read this advertisement?' she asked, now beginning to show her irritation. 'As far as I am aware my services are passed on via word of mouth only. One satisfied customer to another. I have no need to beg for clients, my success rate speaks for itself.'

Severus frowned and cast his mind back to the day, two weeks ago, when a tawny owl had brought his morning Daily Prophet along with the usual mail paraphernalia which he usually ignored or discarded. The curious thing about that particular morning post was that someone had gone to the trouble of casting a Vocal Spell on a leaflet advertising the healing services of The Divine Madame Floella. Severus had presumed it was some innovation on the part of Floella herself to ensure that everyone, even those who could not read, knew of her so-called power to heal.

'You have never advertised?'

'As I said, I do not need to advertise. Now, if you will just relax and open your mind to the spirits, I think you will change your mind on the merit of my skills. Do not be alarmed when I speak; it will be in the language of the dead, you will not understand it, but it is for their ears, not yours. Close your eyes and breathe deeply.'

He would have called her a fraud if he had been listening to a word of her babble, but he was concentrating very hard on remembering the leaflet that had summonsed him there. Now he thought about it, it had been so personalised that it could only have been created with one person in mind. He thought of the content and realised that it had been carefully worded to appeal to a lonely blind man for whom nearly all hope was gone; one who was receptive to whatever glimmer of optimism happened to be thrust into his mind. The leaflet had taken pains to assure him that faith was not needed for this treatment. It had led him to believe that a certain amount of scepticism would be expected from prospective clients. In short, it was tailor-made for Severus Snape by someone who wanted to get him to a certain place at a certain time and by someone who knew him better than anyone else.

His heart pounded with hope and fear: hope that what he had suspected all along was no delusion, and fear that he was now too late.

He barely noticed how hard he had banged into the table top with his thighs as he stood up, knowing that he had to get out of that room before it was too late.

'Mr. Snape! Please sit down. Don't be alarmed by the chanting; it is a necessary preliminary in order to clear my head of…'

'This is a mistake! I can't stay. Where is the bloody door?'

'Please. There's no need to get upset.'

He felt a hand on his arm and another on his shoulder, trying to force him to sit back down. He shrugged it off and took a step backwards. 'The DOOR!' he bellowed. 'SHOW ME THE DOOR!'

A mortally offended Madame Floella knew when she had lost a client and after a few further half-hearted attempts to calm him down, she conceded and led him firmly to the door. Once back into the waiting room, Susan took over and led him, at his insistence, back to his seat. When he was sure that both Susan and her idiotic boss had left him alone, he sat in silence for a moment, collecting his thoughts, breathing deeply, trying to slow down his racing heart. He listened for signs of her and caught a whiff of her honeysuckle perfume again. Was it a lingering shade of her presence long since departed, or was she still there?

The tapping gave him his answer. 'Oh good, it works then,' she said. 'And we were worried she was just a con artist.'

'You're still here?'

'I haven't had my turn yet.'

'You never did tell me about yourself, Sam. How long did you say you'd been deaf?'

'All my life.'

'Strange that you miss the sound a book makes if you've never heard it; and the scratch of quill on parchment is a very specific thing to miss. And it is even stranger that you choose to communicate by speech, albeit simulated speech. I believe that most people who have been deaf from birth prefer to sign.'

'You're a deaf expert now as well as a girlfriend abandoner?'

'Why have you waited this long?'

'All good things come to she who waits.'

Undaunted, he continued. 'Your perfume is very familiar.'

'So's yours: _eau de neglect_, I think it's called. Very sexy.'

'Honeysuckle. You smell of honeysuckle.'

'So?'

'Isn't it strange that there are only two of us here waiting?'

'Not really. How many fingers am I holding up? Not exactly the miracle worker we'd hoped for is she?'

He continued to deflect her flippancy. 'Just the two of us. A deaf girl with a simulated voice who wants to know everything about the blind man's past. No, not everything. You haven't been interested in anything else but a two year period in which I fell in love with Hermione Granger. It's almost as if you already knew everything there was before it.'

'Everyone _does_ know that stuff—it's common knowledge: Death Eater turned spy, Harry Potter's secret saviour, Dumbledore's right hand man…'

'You said nothing about it before.'

'I didn't think you'd want it bringing up.'

'Because of your regard for my fragile feelings? Yes, you've been very careful not to trample over those.'

'You deserved it.'

He was well aware of that, he did not need to admit it. 'Madame Floella does not advertise. Someone went to the trouble of sending me a pamphlet accessible to the blind and appealing to a…'

'Miserable, stubborn, cheerless old sceptic?'

'… hopeless fool.'

'That too.'

He turned his face towards the place where her voice emanated from, his eyes looking out into the shadows that had become his tedious desolate view. '_You _brought me here.'

He knew she wouldn't deny it any longer, but she made him wait for a reply. 'I was curious.'

'To see what I had become?'

'I read about your loss of sight in the Prophet. I knew you must be at rock bottom. The fact that your… altercation was with _him _gave me some hope.'

'You wanted to revel in my degradation.'

'I wanted to see if there was any trace left. Any trace of the man who held me so tightly after we made love that I thought I couldn't breath and made me feel more alive and content than I had ever imagined possible. The man who would bury his face in my hair, call me _his _and then tell me off for incorrectly dissecting a horned slug. The man who said he loved me and made me love him back. I wanted to see if he was still there, or was he just that stupid, self-centred twat who preferred the company of Lucius fucking Malfoy to mine.'

'I made a mistake.'

'Yes you did.'

When it seemed that she had nothing else to say, he took a breath and asked the question of which he was afraid hearing the wrong answer. 'And… what is your conclusion? What was your intent? If you found me to be the man you hoped to see, what then?'

'I thought you would find me. I used to stay at home in case you turned up to beg for my forgiveness. After three years of waiting and hoping, I gave up. You weren't coming.'

'So you moved on,' he said so quietly she would not have caught his words if she had been reliant on sound.

'I met someone, yes. He was a good man.'

'_Was_?' he asked hopefully.

'But it didn't work out.'

'Australia? Marriage? Two happy boys?'

'A lie.'

His soul seemed to cry out with joy. 'You didn't answer my question.'

'What question?'

'Your intent?'

She paused. 'I have two ready-prepared speeches: one for if you turned out to be nothing but the heartless man who left me for a couple of Voldemort cast-offs. And one for the man who loved me until I was breathless.'

He tried not to sound desperate, but what did it really matter now? 'That one. Play me that one. Hermione… please.'

'I can't.'

Her rejection was well-deserved, he knew that; but it didn't prevent the ball of fear he had been preparing to let go, from seizing a fresh hold and squeezing his insides so tightly he wondered how he would recover.

'Why not?' he dared to ask, even though he could barely hear the sound his own words had made, so softly had he uttered them.

'It isn't on my computer.'

After that, he did not hear any more of the light, quick taps he had become so partial to, instead, he heard the snap of a lid being firmly closed, and he knew she was putting away her computer. He heard movement as she stood from her seat, and he wondered if she would say goodbye before she walked out on him as he had done eighteen years ago.

Her steps were approaching, not diminishing into the distance.

Her fragrance was stronger now, and his little ball of fear dared to loosen its grip as he realised that she had taken the seat right beside him.

He trembled like a newborn lamb when he felt her two warm hands take hold of his.

Her voice was as soft and gentle as he remembered. 'Come home, Severus,' she said. 'I'll look after you now.'

The End


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